QK1 Match 1: Fake Invisibility T-Shirt vs Einstein Stinks
Title: The Mostly Invisible Boy
Entry Nickname: Fake Invisibility T-Shirt
Word count: 60K
Genre: MG Contemporary Fantasy
Query:
Eleven-year-old Casey Grimes lives where he doesn’t belong and belongs where he’s not quite living. Despite his stubborn friendliness, kids at Vintage Woods Middle School look right through him. Slowly, he realizes they’re not faking. Casey doesn’t know why he’s mostly-invisible—then he climbs a colossal oak, all the way to a forgotten fortress, and realizes he’s been living on the safe, ordinary side of an unseen border.
Eager to investigate, Casey infiltrates Sylvan Woods, a secret forest society devoted to old and wild things. Shockingly, people here can actually see him. Posing as a Sylvan girl’s cousin, he sneaks into Trickery School—a dangerous academy where classes are life-threatening, teachers are treacherous, and battles are as common as breakfast. For the first time in his life, he makes friends. But kids at Trickery have forgotten their roots. Magic is so last century, and Civilians like Casey are despised. If anyone finds out he’s an illegal, he’ll be blacklisted and sent back across the border for life.
Keeping his identity hidden is hard enough, but the clock is ticking. A vicious breed of monster swarms Trickery. Casey and his new friends decipher a cryptic message and discover the truth: Sylvan Woods will be wiped off the map and he’ll return to a life of being see-through…unless he can use his climbing knack to wake the magical Sentry Trees.
First 250:
Casey Grimes was invisible—at least most of the time.
He stood on the corner under a stop sign, jogging in place as his school bus sped down the street. It slowed to roll through the intersection and Casey sprinted alongside, smacking the door as his backpack bumped his spine. Sound and movement gave him a fighting chance to be seen. For a few seconds, anyway.
“Open up!” he yelled.
The driver squinted through the smudged glass, and Casey banged harder, until the brakes squealed and the accordion doors whooshed open.
“Where’d you come from?” the driver asked.
“Same place I always come from.” Casey jumped into the bus. The driver shrugged and floored the accelerator.
The other two kids on Casey’s route always sat together in the back. He waved, but they didn’t notice, so he took his usual seat by the window, pressing the vinyl with sweaty palms. Don’t give up on the day yet, he told himself. Things might still change.
But they reached Vintage Woods Middle School and nothing was different.
Nothing at all.
“You new here?” A girl asked as Casey opened his locker.
“Of course not,” Casey said. “You’re Lydia, we sit next to each other in—”
But she’d already started talking to someone else.
Manuel walked past—they’d had a five second conversation once—and Casey whirled.
“Hey Manuel,” he said.
The boy’s gaze paused for a millisecond and slid away like it was magnetized.
VERSUS
Title: Gravity and Monsters
Entry Nickname: Einstein Stinks
Word count: 52K
Genre: Middle Grade Science Fiction
Query:
Twelve-year-old Kate seeks refuge in the woods saving trapped animals. She's been stuck in small-town Minnesota with her mad scientist uncle ever since her dad's unexpected death. She can't relate to the gun-toting locals or the pesky boy who follows her around—not that she needs friends—and she definitely can't relate to Uncle. He's too busy punching holes in the universe to notice when she's around.
Then a hulking, color-changing creature comes through one of those holes, into her woods. It cares for them—and Kate—almost as much as Dad did, and Kate grows to love it in return. But even the woods aren't big enough to hide a giant. When a local farmer mistakes the creature for a dangerous bear, he aims to put it down. And if Uncle catches it, he'll dissect it—all in the name of science. To protect the creature Kate must send it back through Uncle's rift. Except then she'll lose her friend forever.
And Kate isn't ready to let go.
This book will appeal to fans of Leila Sales' Once Was a Time and Peter Brown's The Wild Robot.
First 250:
The rabbit screamed.
Kate gripped it around its torso. Who would believe a creature this small could make such a horrific noise? Like a child torn from its mother—or father.
Bam. Crash. Thud.
She sucked in a breath. Thinking about Dad's accident wouldn't help the rabbit.
Kate sat cross-legged in the dirt and cradled the animal in her lap. The snare, meant for a wolf, cut into the rabbit's leg and blood oozed into its brown-grey fur. She grabbed its hind ankles.
It kicked.
"Watch it!" She rubbed the fresh scratches on her arm. "I'm just trying to help, OK?"
She turned the rabbit to point its legs in a safer direction and pressed her forearm against its chest. The beat of the animal's tiny heart fluttered against her wrist. When she slid a finger under the wire of the snare, the rabbit screamed again.
"Shhh." Kate hummed a few notes of something, something someone had once sung to her probably.
The rabbit grunted and jerked.
She covered its eyes and stroked its forehead with her thumb. If it kicked too much, it would hurt itself more.
Did it think she was a wolf?
Right, because a lot of wolves have knowledge of basic first aid.
Dad taught her how to tend to animals back in Saint Paul—before Uncle, before the accident—the first time she heard a rabbit scream. A dog caught it. She chased the dog away, but the rabbit was too far gone. Dad helped her bury it.
Entry Nickname: Fake Invisibility T-Shirt
Word count: 60K
Genre: MG Contemporary Fantasy
Query:
Eleven-year-old Casey Grimes lives where he doesn’t belong and belongs where he’s not quite living. Despite his stubborn friendliness, kids at Vintage Woods Middle School look right through him. Slowly, he realizes they’re not faking. Casey doesn’t know why he’s mostly-invisible—then he climbs a colossal oak, all the way to a forgotten fortress, and realizes he’s been living on the safe, ordinary side of an unseen border.
Eager to investigate, Casey infiltrates Sylvan Woods, a secret forest society devoted to old and wild things. Shockingly, people here can actually see him. Posing as a Sylvan girl’s cousin, he sneaks into Trickery School—a dangerous academy where classes are life-threatening, teachers are treacherous, and battles are as common as breakfast. For the first time in his life, he makes friends. But kids at Trickery have forgotten their roots. Magic is so last century, and Civilians like Casey are despised. If anyone finds out he’s an illegal, he’ll be blacklisted and sent back across the border for life.
Keeping his identity hidden is hard enough, but the clock is ticking. A vicious breed of monster swarms Trickery. Casey and his new friends decipher a cryptic message and discover the truth: Sylvan Woods will be wiped off the map and he’ll return to a life of being see-through…unless he can use his climbing knack to wake the magical Sentry Trees.
First 250:
Casey Grimes was invisible—at least most of the time.
He stood on the corner under a stop sign, jogging in place as his school bus sped down the street. It slowed to roll through the intersection and Casey sprinted alongside, smacking the door as his backpack bumped his spine. Sound and movement gave him a fighting chance to be seen. For a few seconds, anyway.
“Open up!” he yelled.
The driver squinted through the smudged glass, and Casey banged harder, until the brakes squealed and the accordion doors whooshed open.
“Where’d you come from?” the driver asked.
“Same place I always come from.” Casey jumped into the bus. The driver shrugged and floored the accelerator.
The other two kids on Casey’s route always sat together in the back. He waved, but they didn’t notice, so he took his usual seat by the window, pressing the vinyl with sweaty palms. Don’t give up on the day yet, he told himself. Things might still change.
But they reached Vintage Woods Middle School and nothing was different.
Nothing at all.
“You new here?” A girl asked as Casey opened his locker.
“Of course not,” Casey said. “You’re Lydia, we sit next to each other in—”
But she’d already started talking to someone else.
Manuel walked past—they’d had a five second conversation once—and Casey whirled.
“Hey Manuel,” he said.
The boy’s gaze paused for a millisecond and slid away like it was magnetized.
VERSUS
Title: Gravity and Monsters
Entry Nickname: Einstein Stinks
Word count: 52K
Genre: Middle Grade Science Fiction
Query:
Twelve-year-old Kate seeks refuge in the woods saving trapped animals. She's been stuck in small-town Minnesota with her mad scientist uncle ever since her dad's unexpected death. She can't relate to the gun-toting locals or the pesky boy who follows her around—not that she needs friends—and she definitely can't relate to Uncle. He's too busy punching holes in the universe to notice when she's around.
Then a hulking, color-changing creature comes through one of those holes, into her woods. It cares for them—and Kate—almost as much as Dad did, and Kate grows to love it in return. But even the woods aren't big enough to hide a giant. When a local farmer mistakes the creature for a dangerous bear, he aims to put it down. And if Uncle catches it, he'll dissect it—all in the name of science. To protect the creature Kate must send it back through Uncle's rift. Except then she'll lose her friend forever.
And Kate isn't ready to let go.
This book will appeal to fans of Leila Sales' Once Was a Time and Peter Brown's The Wild Robot.
First 250:
The rabbit screamed.
Kate gripped it around its torso. Who would believe a creature this small could make such a horrific noise? Like a child torn from its mother—or father.
Bam. Crash. Thud.
She sucked in a breath. Thinking about Dad's accident wouldn't help the rabbit.
Kate sat cross-legged in the dirt and cradled the animal in her lap. The snare, meant for a wolf, cut into the rabbit's leg and blood oozed into its brown-grey fur. She grabbed its hind ankles.
It kicked.
"Watch it!" She rubbed the fresh scratches on her arm. "I'm just trying to help, OK?"
She turned the rabbit to point its legs in a safer direction and pressed her forearm against its chest. The beat of the animal's tiny heart fluttered against her wrist. When she slid a finger under the wire of the snare, the rabbit screamed again.
"Shhh." Kate hummed a few notes of something, something someone had once sung to her probably.
The rabbit grunted and jerked.
She covered its eyes and stroked its forehead with her thumb. If it kicked too much, it would hurt itself more.
Did it think she was a wolf?
Right, because a lot of wolves have knowledge of basic first aid.
Dad taught her how to tend to animals back in Saint Paul—before Uncle, before the accident—the first time she heard a rabbit scream. A dog caught it. She chased the dog away, but the rabbit was too far gone. Dad helped her bury it.
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